In a conference room in a publishing house in San Francisco, a group of high school students met weekly over the previous year to read literary magazines, chapbooks, graphic novels, and countless articles. With the help of a similar committee of high school students in Ann Arbor, and their guest editor, Rachel Kushner, they selected the contents of The Best American Nonrequired Reading for 2016. It features stories about Bulgarian spaceships, psychedelic mushroom therapy, and a cyclorama in Iowa, with contributions from Jesse Ball, N.R. Kleinfield, Rebecca Makkai, Dan Hoy, Michael Pollan, Marilynne Robinson, Dana Spiotta, Adrian Tomine, and Inara Verzemnieks.